This is an interview with Sydney Schanberg and Nate Thayer, both journalists who worked heavily in Cambodia. I thought this interview was particularly interesting because of what Schanberg said about capturing Pol Pot and relating to how it would be similar if Hitler had been caught. This startled me because I wasn't as well aware of the situation in Cambodia, whereas I know a lot about the Holocaust. Most people know everything about the Holocaust and very few know about Pol Pot. It made me realize that if we choose to ignore something, then it becomes less important in history. What happened in Cambodia should be important in history. Two million people died.
Another fascinating fact has to do with Pol Pot’s education. Pol Pot was educated in France and he learned Maoist communism. The interesting thing I found out here, he wasn’t a very bright student and never got his PhD. This fascinated me because the Khmer Rouge's big idea was to kill the educated, the good students, the ones that he couldn't be. I wasn’t sure why he hated the intellectuals, but now it seems to make a bit more sense. I liked to hear more about Pol Pot. It seems obvious that if he had made his plan at any other time, people would have recognized he was mad, but because the Vietnam war was spilling into Cambodia and there was so much chaos going on they didn't.
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